How to Escape Victory's Jaws and Snatch Defeat?  - by Reema Batra Singh - CollectLo

How to Escape Victory's Jaws and Snatch Defeat?

Reema Batra Singh - CollectLo

Reema Batra Singh

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2 min read . Jun 13 2024

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Through Improper Expectations!

The current elections have demonstrated quite clearly how needless bluster and arrogance may backfire horribly.

Though it is no mean achievement for the BJP to have won a third straight term, the leadership's declaration that the NDA would win more than 400 seats made a historic victory seem like a defeat :)

Even when there have been notable successes, misaligned expectations can undermine confidence, lower spirits, and finally result in failure.

This phenomenon applies not just to politics; experts in any kind of organizational context should learn from it. Within organizations, I typically observe two kinds of extremes:

1. The Repeatable Achiever:

Those who establish too conservative goals in order to guarantee a near-100% success rate. Their managers see through the "low-hanging fruit" strategy even as they tick the "target-met" box. Thus, the positions that these leaders wind up in are either non-critical or ones that just uphold the status quo.

The Unrealistic Pleaser:

Leaders that pledge lofty, top-down goals without making reasonable evaluations. They 'enjoy to please' and want to be viewed as all-powerful alpha males. They start a loop of overpromising and underdelivering, even though their hearts are in the right place.

To develop goals that work, in my experience, one must strike a balance between ambition and reality.

Thorough bottom-up planning, together with top-down objectives, establishes a framework in which objectives are difficult yet reachable.

While they are important, stretch goals need to be based on reality. Targets are challenging but not totally unachievable if a 70–80% success chance is the aim. They might equally be described as two goals: a stretch goal and a base-level goal.

This also makes it very evident what the organization expects of you, and you will still be regarded as a "performer" even if you don't succeed. CEOs admire fearless leaders.

Success is, in short, about controlling perceptions rather than merely reaching targets.

The foundation of being a top player is, never forget, "say what you're going to do, and then do what you said."